I have always been in Customer Service.  in 1980 I worked for a grocery chain here in Maine.  I worked for that company for 18 years.  It was something to do until I got a real job.  Then I worked 1 year at a fast food restaurant, and following that 7 years for a major retailer in Maine at a 3rd shift call center. In all, I have spent over 25 years in Customer Service.  I learned a few things:

• I did NOT deliberately go slow to make you wait longer.
• I cannot open another register if I have no more able bodied people in the store.
• 10 items or less doesn’t mean 13 or 15 or even 20…it means 10. And dividing your items into two orders of 8 each is NOT ten items or less.
• We may be told that the customer is always right, but 99% of the time they are not.
• 100% customer satisfaction guarantee doesn’t mean that because your child liked BLUE best last year you can exchange it for a green one (her new favorite color) this year.
• I have a hard time believing that shoppers cannot get their shopping done Monday-Saturday between 7AM and 11 PM.  Opening on Sundays and Holidays was a big mistake.  And why should I have to work THOSE Sundays and Holidays because YOU can’t take care of your shopping needs at any other time?
• No a shopping cart is NOT a vehicle and I will not serve you in the drive thru window.
• You really braved a blizzard to pick up that bag of chips and half gallon of ice cream?
• There are a lot of lonely, crazy people who call call centers just to talk to someone.

Retail workers are the invisible people who stock shelves, scan and bag your order, get price checks, listen to your complaints and retrieve the carts you couldn’t return to the store.  They show up in bad weather, blizzards, hurricanes, and power outages to make sure you can get what you think you need.  They don’t set the prices.   They don’t set the hours.  They don’t schedule the help.  And they are required to meet minimums:  fastest start to finish drive thru orders (1:30 was the norm).  They are required to meet a minimum number of items scanned per minute (RPMs in a grocery store are “rings per minute”).  In a call center setting, every call is monitored for quality and time (and there were a few customers who could keep one representative on the phone for 2 hours at a time).

This holiday season, it is the Customer Service Representative who will do everything they can, with a smile, to make your shopping experience better than horrid.  Thank them.  They often work for little more than minimum wage.  They will listen to you complain about how early Christmas stuff comes out, items that are out of stock, and how tired YOU are already…put yourself in their shoes for one moment…they get to experience the joys of holiday shopping from both sides.  It isn’t fun.

Yep….WHOM (94.9) started the 24/7 holiday music…they will play it through the end of the day, December 25th.  And I LOVE IT!  I mentioned in an earlier blog that I am addicted to an hour long drive around the lake (almost every morning…it’s how I start my day)…And today the Christmas music started….

An hour may not have been long enough today….each song brought special memories…and significant  emotional responses as I remembered Christmases past….in Falmouth (where I grew up)…the illnesses and loss of my parents….celebrations at my Nana’s (in Falmouth…on her porch, and in Portland)…And in the home we knew for 22 years….

I miss being a kid.  And I miss my little boys.  The excitement and wonder ina child’s eyes.  Simpler.  Easier.  I miss the comfort of Christmas mornings…pancakes and bacon..(oh…we will still have that)…And I look forward to Christmases here, with our grandchildren, and a front porch…

This season?  It’s kinda like a swim in a cold lake….In listening to the music (before Thanksgiving), and beginning to decorate…I am dipping a toe and wading in…rather than jump in all at once in the middle of December.  In a while, I will be acclimated and will enjoy the Season, “swimmingly!”

22 years of a very happy, content, life.  22 years of accumulated stuff.  22 years of physical memories destroyed in about an hour.

Those who know me well, know that I am not a drinker, or a smoker, and that I am VERY modest.  Imagine my dismay in knowing that on March 7, because they couldn’t reach the flames on the second floor of our home, the fire department had to have a crew come in to pull the walls down.  We were next door at my mother-in-law’s and could hear the house as it was pulled apart and spread on the ground.

Imagine the next day…March 8.  Everything was covered with ash, soot, smoke, and ice.  It was unsafe to get too close.  We could see the fridge, the washer…and ironing board…mattresses…broken doors…we couldn’t find the piano…or any part of it…not yet.

Do you remember the months of March and April, 2014?  In Maine, it was cold.  Raw.  Windy.  Every other day brought more freezing rain, rain, or snow…Sure…I walked over there nearly every day…looking for anything that might be saved…but what bothered me the most was the fact that pages of magazines, books, notebooks….and anything paper (pictures, school art…) was blowing across the field.  Everything we were.  Everything we had saved.  Our house was turned inside out, and open to anyone who wanted to wander by and have a look around.  We could see the phonograph records…clothing (ripped and singed), and stuff.  The pictures below are from April 7 (one month after the fire) and that was probably the earliest we could move around…

April 23rd we had a “Treasure Hunt” and invited everyone we knew to come help us sift through the debris pile.  We sorted metal, clothing, paper, and wood.  We found some things to keep.  And much more that was now trash.  Imagine my comfort level as folks sifted through underwear….journals….books….our lives were on display, and being picked through quite thoroughly.  We tried to save a lot of things that really were too damaged to realistically keep.

We have learned a lot.  Grown a lot.  In the last 9 months our faith has been strengthened.  I think tomorrow I will show you the beginning of the next chapter in our lives….today, I share these pictures and hope to leave the scabs alone.  It really DID happen.  We really DO live here in this new house…and the world keeps spinning.

The first snowflake of the year ALWAYS makes me giddy with excitement….I love to watch it snow.  I love the really big storms.  I love hearing the wind whip the snow and make it fall sideways.  I love driving in it….at night…and flipping between high and low beams….just so you know?  When the high beams are on?  I pretend I am in a space ship…some might say I am weird…others might get tired of snow…and cold weather…but there is nothing better than being the first to leave tracks (foot prints or tires)…and:

• SNOW ANGELS!
• Cross country skiing with your favorite mellow music (or none at all)…there is peace in the silence.
• Standing still, in the dark of a snowy evening (the gentle snow….)
• SNOWMEN!
• Caroling in the snow….
• I don’t enjoy shoveling, but what a workout!
• snow forts and snowball fights!
• Sledding!

Now…I listen to a radio station that plays NOTHING BUT CHRISTMAS  after Thanksgiving.  They are starting to play a few Christmas tunes now, interspersed with the regular music….

Anyone else feel conflicted during the holidays? I LOVE the season.  I love the JOY, and PEACE.  I love the REASONS we celebrate….But I also miss my mom (her LAST Christmas was our BEST Christmas)…I miss my Dad who passed away on December 10, 2007…I miss Kerry’s Dad…and this year the holidays will be the first without him…I miss the HOME where we celebrated the holidays for 21 years….and the familiarity of the house and traditions we had….and the music brings it all back.

So, before I go back to the interruption of March 7, 2014….I wanted to express my exuberance for SNOW FLAKES…all of them…whether they fall gently and silently, or wind-whipped and fast….snow reminds me that there is peace in the storm…and when it’s over?  Everything is new.  Crisp.  Beautiful…….